Homily - Our Lepanto or Our Constantinople?

Brothers and sisters, today the Church celebrates the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary...

And the importance of this feast is so great that I beg your pardon, and ask that you permit me to put a question to you that arises from this feast:

Are we facing our Lepanto or are we facing our Constantinople?

The Battle of Lepanto...

“In 1571, Pope St. Pius V organized a coalition of forces from Spain and smaller Christian kingdoms, republics and military orders, to rescue Christian outposts in Cyprus, particularly the Venetian outpost at Famagusta which, however, surrendered after a long siege on August 1 before the Christian forces set sail. On October 7, 1571, the Holy League, a coalition of southern European Catholic maritime states, sailed from Messina, Sicily, and met a powerful Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. 

Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct materiel disadvantage, the holy pontiff, Pope Pius V, called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and led a rosary procession in Rome.

After about five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece, the combined navies of the Papal States, Venice and Spain managed to stop the Ottoman navy, slowing the Ottoman advance to the west and denying them access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas.

If the Ottomans had won then there was a real possibility that an invasion of Italy could have followed so that the Ottoman sultan, already claiming to be emperor of the Romans, would have been in possession of both New and Old Rome.

Combined with the unfolding events in Morocco where the Sa’adids successfully spurned the Ottoman advances, it confined Turkish naval power to the eastern Mediterranean.

Although the Ottoman Empire was able to build more ships, it never fully recovered from the loss of trained sailors and marines, and was never again the Mediterranean naval power it had become the century before when Constantinople fell.”

But, a little over a hundred years earlier... 
Constantinople was defeated!

On May 29, 1453, Constantinople — the Eastern capital of Christian Rome — fell to the Islamic forces of Mehmed the Conqueror, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire!

Today, a crisis looms about us!

• The necessary pieces have been put in place
• Civil rights have been elevated to such a degree that religious rights are now viewed as inferior
• First, Abortion and
• Then, Sodomy, and
• It’s twin brother, same-sex marriage.
• And, now Trangenderism is the law of the land
• Our government is now approaching a tyrannical form! 
• Powerful people in our government have declared that "…deep-seated cultural codes, and religious beliefs…have to be changed."
• Soon "schools our will insist on inclusive values."
• Tragically, the vast majority of the Catholic sons and daughters of God stand against Jesus Christ and His Holy Church…

• It is quite possible that very soon, indeed, it will be illegal to be The Church in America.

• Do not be deceived, this “war is between evil on the one side being advanced by the government and its agents” 
• and Jesus Christ, His Church and its few remaining faithful!

• For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 
• Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Ephesians 6:12-13)

• So the question that I put to you this day is:

• Is this our Lepanto?
• Or will it be our Constantinople?

If you have been unfaithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ and of His Church, I beg you to repent of your sins, and return to the Lord... obey Him fully, and cast not your lot any longer with the wicked!

• And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)

If you have been faithful to all the commands of Jesus Christ, and faithful to all that His Holy Church teaches, pray for the Church...

Pray that she may prove faithful in the coming trial!

• When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:13-14)

• Our Lady of the Rosary, Pray for Us!
• Come to our aid, Our Lady of Victory!

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_the_Rosary

Sources: http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-hillary-wants-to-outlaw-the-church

A letter regarding globalism...

Dear Deb,

I, too, have found the topic of globalism facinating - and for reasons similar to yours.

What strikes me as particularly odd though, is the utilitarian foundation that is being laid for contemporary globalism: "We should all play nice because it is in each of our best interests to do so." One need not be a sage of Mosaic rank to know that building a globalist future upon a "what's in it for me, baby" philosophy is as prudent as building the family home on the sand doons of a coastal town.

It seems to me that true globalism must be grounded in religion, and, if this is true, then we have only three options:

1. Atheistic Communism (or Statism)
2. Islam
3. Christianity

Note: I believe that Budhism is an insufficient foundation for a true globalism because it offers no coherent rationale for a unified vision of humanity. Hinduism fails as a framework for globalism because its habit-of-life regarding problem resolution is pragmatic (see its method of integrating polytheism and pantheism) and as essentially utilitarian as the current proposed bases for globalism. Judaism would be an insufficent ground for the globalists' ideals because of its tendency to nationalism.

It should not surprise that I reject the first option because it is fundamentally materialistic (in the philosophical sense), and therefore, would require that the human orientation toward worship be suppressed or subjugated to a contigent and finite entity, the global state.

I would contend that the supremacy of maleness within Islam and the radical singularity of its conception of the deity render it unsuitable as a foundation for globalism. The former is revealed both in its teachings regarding the value of woman vis-a-vis man in time, and in its teachings regarding their relations in the afterlife. The latter is revealed in Islam's constant confession regarding the deity, "Allah: The one and only God, creator and sustainer of the universe."

Since Allah knows nothing of the experience of personal relations within himself, Islam has no internal safeguards against the depersonalization of the faithful. This radical singularity is fundamental to Islam's understanding of the ground of all existence. If the deity is both utterly sufficient in itself and devoid of interior relations, then the human experience of interdependency and interrelationship is a weakness, and not a genuine and fundamental good as we intuit it to be.

I am convinced that if contemporary globalism were to adopt an Islamic cast, then globalism would become a powerful tool for the resubjugation of women. Eventually, as the practical implications its concept of the deity is worked out, this globalist world order would erode and eradicate the personalist cast that has developed within the Judeo-Christian West.

The following considerations lead me to adopt the view that Christianity is the only sufficient ground for a true and genuinely human globalism:

1. Christianity affirms that the human race is a single family, and, as such, grounds our inter-relations upon the obligations of kinship.

2. Christianity affirms that each human person is made to the image and likeness of God, and, as such, every man and every woman possesses an equal dignity and worth.

3. Christianity affirms that inter-relations is fundamental to the ground of all existence, that in the one and only Divine being, there eternally exists three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and, as such, serves as a guardian of those essentially human values: love, compassion, justice, and mercy, etc.

4. Christianity affirms that at the heart of the deity's mission toward the human race is an invitation to return to the Family Table, to come and dine with our one Father, and one Brother, in the Love made present by the one Spirit.

I am convinced that a genuine globalism requires Christianity. In fact, the desire for globalism is a vestige of the Christian culture that once served as the heart of Western Civilization. One might not unjustly note that the dialogical manner in which many seek to establish globalism is a without explanation were it not for the West's Judeo-Christian heritage.

Long live Jesus Christ, the First Globalist!

Image and resemblance...

“The image of God present in man impels him towards resemblance; that is, towards an ever fuller identification between his will and the divine will.” ~ William of Saint Thierry

Devotion to Christ: The Fruit of the Marian Gaze

"Remembering our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God." ~ The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostomos

The Intimacy of Christmas

In Jesus, "we see God in our nature, coping with our world, meeting situations known to us. Outside Christianity there is nothing to compare with the intimacy of this knowledge." ~ Frank J. Sheed, Theology for Beginners

Wisdom, Mercy & Justice

A wise judge may let mercy temper justice but may not let mercy undo it. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

The prisoner was you...

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgiveness

Detecting forgiveness...

You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

It only takes one to forgive...

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

Forgiveness is not understanding...

...Forgiving is not having to understand. Understanding may come later, in fragments, an insight here and a glimpse there, after forgiving. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

Forgiveness isn't tolerance...

You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything... We don't have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

Forgive the wife-slammer

Forgive a wife-slammer if you can. But you don't have to live with him. Forgive a husband who is abusing your children if you can. But only after you kick him out of the house. And if you can't get him out, get help. It's available. In the meantime, don't let him near the kids, and don't let anyone tell you that if you forgive him it means you have to stay with him. [There's an important difference between forgiving a person and tolerating their bad behavior.] ~ Lewis B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

Giving up on vegeance

When you give up vengeance, make sure you are not giving up on justice. The line between the two is faint, unsteady, and fine...Vengeance is our own pleasure of seeing someone who hurt us getting it back and then some. Justice, on the other hand, is secure when someone pays a fair penalty for wronging another even if the injured person takes no pleasure in the transaction. Vengeance is personal satisfaction. Justice is moral accounting...Human forgiveness does not do away with human justice. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

The Problem with Revenge

The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain...Why do family feuds go on and on?...the reason is simple: no two people, no two families, ever weigh pain on the same scale. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

Ghandi was right

Gandhi was right: if we all live by 'an eye for an eye' the whole world will be blind. The only way out is forgiveness. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

Videotaped Vengeance

Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind... And each time it plays you feel the clap of pain again... Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory. Forgiving sets you free. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgiveness

Healed, but not deleted...

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

Failure's Real Name

The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

Forgiving Evil

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

God's Remedy

God invented forgiving as a remedy for a past that not even he could change and not even he could forget. His way of forgiving is the model for our forgiving. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, , The Art of Forgiving

God's Invention

Forgiveness is God's invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget

The Original Forgiver

God is the original, master forgiver. Each time we grope our reluctant way through the minor miracle of forgiving, we are imitating his style. I am not at all sure that any of us would have had imagination enough to see the possibilities in this way to heal the wrongs of this life had he not done it first. ~ Lewis B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving

Celebrating Lewis B. Smedes

Every so often a single person impacts you in dramatic ways. Today, I will be celebrating one such person, Lewis B. Smedes. Enjoy the feast!